Space Sci-Fi Boxed Set: Intergalactic Wars, Alien Attacks & Space Adventure Novels. David Lindsay
but one belated board had been put out late and forgotten, and it still bore its placard.
The word upon it — there was but one word upon it in staring letters — was: “WAR.”
You figure that empty mean street, emptily echoing to my footsteps — no soul awake and audible but me. Then my halt at the placard. And amidst that sleeping stillness, smeared hastily upon the board, a little askew and crumpled, but quite distinct beneath that cool meteoric glare, preposterous and appalling, the measureless evil of that word —
“WAR!”
Section 2
I awoke in that state of equanimity that so often follows an emotional drenching.
It was late, and my mother was beside my bed. She had some breakfast for me on a battered tray.
“Don’t get up yet, dear,” she said. “You’ve been sleeping. It was three o’clock when you got home last night. You must have been tired out.”
“Your poor face,” she went on, “was as white as a sheet and your eyes shining… . It frightened me to let you in. And you stumbled on the stairs.”
My eyes went quietly to my coat pocket, where something still bulged. She probably had not noticed. “I went to Checkshill,” I said. “You know — perhaps —?”
“I got a letter last evening, dear,” and as she bent near me to put the tray upon my knees, she kissed my hair softly. For a moment we both remained still, resting on that, her cheek just touching my head.
I took the tray from her to end the pause.
“Don’t touch my clothes, mummy,” I said sharply, as she moved towards them. “I’m still equal to a clothes-brush.”
And then, as she turned away, I astonished her by saying, “You dear mother, you! A little — I understand. Only — now — dear mother; oh! let me be! Let me be!”
And, with the docility of a good servant, she went from me. Dear heart of submission that the world and I had used so ill!
It seemed to me that morning that I could never give way to a gust of passion again. A sorrowful firmness of the mind possessed me. My purpose seemed now as inflexible as iron; there was neither love nor hate nor fear left in me — only I pitied my mother greatly for all that was still to come. I ate my breakfast slowly, and thought where I could find out about Shaphambury, and how I might hope to get there. I had not five shillings in the world.
I dressed methodically, choosing the least frayed of my collars, and shaving much more carefully than was my wont; then I went down to the Public Library to consult a map.
Shaphambury was on the coast of Essex, a long and complicated journey from Clayton. I went to the railway-station and made some memoranda from the timetables. The porters I asked were not very clear about Shaphambury, but the booking-office clerk was helpful, and we puzzled out all I wanted to know. Then I came out into the coaly street again. At the least I ought to have two pounds.
I went back to the Public Library and into the newspaper room to think over this problem.
A fact intruded itself upon me. People seemed in an altogether exceptional stir about the morning journals, there was something unusual in the air of the room, more people and more talking than usual, and for a moment I was puzzled. Then I bethought me: “This war with Germany, of course!” A naval battle was supposed to be in progress in the North Sea. Let them! I returned to the consideration of my own affairs.
Parload?
Could I go and make it up with him, and then borrow? I weighed the chances of that. Then I thought of selling or pawning something, but that seemed difficult. My winter overcoat had not cost a pound when it was new, my watch was not likely to fetch many shillings. Still, both these things might be factors. I thought with a certain repugnance of the little store my mother was probably making for the rent. She was very secretive about that, and it was locked in an old tea-caddy in her bedroom. I knew it would be almost impossible to get any of that money from her willingly, and though I told myself that in this issue of passion and death no detail mattered, I could not get rid of tormenting scruples whenever I thought of that tea-caddy. Was there no other course? Perhaps after every other source had been tapped I might supplement with a few shillings frankly begged from her. “These others,” I said to myself, thinking without passion for once of the sons of the Secure, “would find it difficult to run their romances on a pawnshop basis. However, we must manage it.”
I felt the day was passing on, but I did not get excited about that. “Slow is swiftest,” Parload used to say, and I meant to get everything thought out completely, to take a long aim and then to act as a bullet flies.
I hesitated at a pawnshop on my way home to my midday meal, but I determined not to pledge my watch until I could bring my overcoat also.
I ate silently, revolving plans.
Section 3
After our midday dinner — it was a potato-pie, mostly potato with some scraps of cabbage and bacon — I put on my overcoat and got it out of the house while my mother was in the scullery at the back.
A scullery in the old world was, in the case of such houses as ours, a damp, unsavory, mainly subterranean region behind the dark livingroom kitchen, that was rendered more than typically dirty in our case by the fact that into it the coal-cellar, a yawning pit of black uncleanness, opened, and diffused small crunchable particles about the uneven brick floor. It was the region of “washing-up,” that greasy, damp function that followed every meal; its atmosphere had ever a cooling steaminess and the memory of boiled cabbage, and the sooty black stains where saucepan or kettle had been put down for a minute, scraps of potato-peel caught by the strainer of the escape-pipe, and rags of a quite indescribable horribleness of acquisition, called “dish-clouts,” rise in my memory at the name. The altar of this place was the “sink,” a tank of stone, revolting to a refined touch, grease-filmed and unpleasant to see, and above this was a tap for cold water, so arranged that when the water descended it splashed and wetted whoever had turned it on. This tap was our water supply. And in such a place you must fancy a little old woman, rather incompetent and very gentle, a soul of unselfishness and sacrifice, in dirty clothes, all come from their original colors to a common dusty dark gray, in worn, ill-fitting boots, with hands distorted by ill use, and untidy graying hair — my mother. In the winter her hands would be “chapped,” and she would have a cough. And while she washes up I go out, to sell my overcoat and watch in order that I may desert her.
I gave way to queer hesitations in pawning my two negotiable articles. A weakly indisposition to pawn in Clayton, where the pawnbroker knew me, carried me to the door of the place in Lynch Street, Swathinglea, where I had bought my revolver. Then came an idea that I was giving too many facts about myself to one man, and I came back to Clayton after all. I forget how much money I got, but I remember that it was rather less than the sum I had made out to be the single fare to Shaphambury. Still deliberate, I went back to the Public Library to find out whether it was possible, by walking for ten or twelve miles anywhere, to shorten the journey. My boots were in a dreadful state, the sole of the left one also was now peeling off, and I could not help perceiving that all my plans might be wrecked if at this crisis I went on shoe leather in which I could only shuffle. So long as I went softly they would serve, but not for hard walking. I went to the shoemaker in Hacker Street, but he would not promise any repairs for me under forty-eight hours.
I got back home about five minutes to three, resolved to start by the five train for Birmingham in any case, but still dissatisfied about my money. I thought of pawning a book or something of that sort, but I could think of nothing of obvious value in the house. My mother’s silver — two gravy-spoons and a salt-cellar — had been pawned for some weeks, since, in fact, the June quarter day. But my mind was full of hypothetical opportunities.
As I came up the steps to our door, I remarked that Mr. Gabbitas looked at me suddenly round his dull red curtains with